Gathering, storing and using reputation information

ABSTRACT

A method and a system for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed has a reputation updater for updating a reputation when a party&#39;s reputation has changed, a reputation storer for storing the party&#39;s reputation, an access decision rating maker for making a rating on a party&#39;s access abilities based upon the party&#39;s reputation and reputation history storage for storing a party&#39;s reputation having access decision rating storage for storing previous and present access decision storage ratings.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The following applications, commonly-owned with this one, are related and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/775,410, filed on May 6, 2010, entitled “Reputation Based Access Control”; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/815,431, filed on Jun. 16, 2010, entitled “Party Reputation Aggregation System And Method”; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/862,030, filed on Aug. 24, 2010, entitled “Data System Forensics System And Method”.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

One aspect of the present invention provides for a method and a system for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed.

There is a problem where a party comes/goes/comes/goes, etc., to/from an enterprise to gathering, storing and using a running history of parties' attributes/reputations when, e.g., a party may come/go/come/go and attributes/reputation change in the meantime to calculate an access decision rating, especially over disparate data sources.

There is a need to gather, store, update and use a party's attributes/reputation that may or may not have changed over time and calculate an access decision rating and to recalculate an access decision rating when the party's attributes/reputation that have changed over time.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Many times, there is a need to assess the reputation, qualities or attributes of an individual or an organization such as a social networking organization. Some examples of times where it is desirable to assess an individual's or an organization's reputation, qualities or attributes may be when an individual or an organization is requesting physical access (e.g., to a building or a secured area within a building, to use a bulldozer or other power equipment, etc.) or electronic access (e.g., to a secured database or application on a server). For instance, it may be useful to understand the individual's skill level at a particular task, such as the individual's skill at operating a dangerous power tool or the individual's skill at programming in Java® programming language. Relevant information may include certifications received by the individual, peer reviews of the individual by his peers, an expert opinion of the individual's skill at that task, security level, the individual's activity history (e.g., as to whether the individual performed well in the past in a particular task), the individual's associations with organizations (e.g., programmers' user groups, social groups, social networking organizations, etc.) and individual's relationships with other individuals (e.g., father-son, attorney-client, friend-friend, etc.).

However, presently, this type of information may be dispersed across many different, possibly unconnected information stores. It is possible that present data systems, including such directory services as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)—like directory services, e.g., Microsoft® LDAP software or Microsoft Active Directory® software, do not maintain a history for an individual or an organization. Further, it may be that no history on artifacts is kept in many content management systems (CMSs) that integrate/interface with LDAP-like directory services. Further yet, there may be no mechanism for tracking an individual's or organization's pedigree/reputation/reliability/trustworthiness factors or one that has history for the same.

There is a problem in that there is a gap in maintaining an individual's or organization's history with respect to an enterprise's security model. In the case of an enterprise, individuals may enter and leave the enterprise over time. As such, security may be granted on a temporal basis only such that there may be a lack of historical recording that tells of an individual's security life cycle in the enterprise. Moreover, this gap may leave the individual's social network absent from the individual's security life cycle model at each interval that they are active in the enterprise. This may be important because, when an individual is determined to be “unreliable” for any reason, it may prove valuable to trace through any and all relationships that point to the source at any time, past and/or present, for finding “human security holes.”

What is needed is a system and method for creating, maintaining, and monitoring of individuals, organizations and artifacts relating to the same over time with respect to pedigree and reputation, security and reliability. It is further needed to have a system and method for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed.

Therefore, there exists a need for a solution that solves at least one of the deficiencies of the related art.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention may comprise a system and method for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed.

The present invention may further comprise a method for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and to recalculate the access decision rating when the party's reputation data has changed, the method comprising collecting reputation information relating to a requester, storing requester's reputation information, calculating an access decision rating based upon requester's reputation information and storing the access decision rating.

The present invention may further comprise a computer-readable medium storing computer instructions, which, when executed, enables a computer system operating with a reputation provider having a reputation updater, a reputation storer, an access decision rating maker, and reputation history storage having access decision storage for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating, the computer-readable medium storing computer instructions for performing a method comprising collecting reputation information relating to a requester, storing requester's reputation information, calculating an access decision rating based upon requester's reputation information, and storing the access decision rating.

The present invention may further comprise a method for deploying a system having a reputation updater, a reputation storer, an access decision rating maker, and reputation history storage having access decision storage, for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed, the method comprising a process comprising collecting reputation information relating to a requester, storing requester's reputation information, calculating an access decision rating based upon requester's reputation information and storing the access decision rating.

The present invention may further comprise a system for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed, the system comprising a reputation updater for updating a reputation when a party's reputation has changed, a reputation storer for storing the party's reputation, an access decision rating maker for making a rating on a party's access abilities based upon the party's reputation, and reputation history storage for storing a party's reputation having access decision rating storage for storing previous and present access decision storage ratings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features of this invention will be more readily understood from the following detailed description of the various aspects of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 shows a data processing system suitable for implementing an embodiment of a system for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a network that may incorporate an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates a system of the present invention for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed has a reputation updater for updating a reputation.

FIG. 4 illustrates a method of the present invention for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed.

The drawings are merely schematic representations, not intended to portray specific parameters of the invention. The drawings are intended to depict only typical embodiments of the invention, and therefore should not be considered as limiting the scope of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention, which meets the needs identified above, provides for a method and a system for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed.

Many different data systems store, organize and provide access to data, such as those using the LDAP protocol. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, or LDAP, is an application protocol for querying and modifying data using directory services running over TCP/IP. A directory service is simply the software system that stores, organizes and provides access to information in a directory. A directory is a set of objects with attributes organized in a logical and hierarchical manner. As an example, Microsoft Active Directory® software and technology is a technology created by Microsoft Corporation that provides a variety of network services, including LDAP-like directory services. There are other directory services software products and other protocols and these are noted as examples.

A data processing system 100, such as data processing system 102 shown in FIG. 1, suitable for storing and/or executing program code of the present invention may include historical party reputation data collection system 104 having at least one processor (processing unit 106) coupled directly or indirectly to memory 110 through system bus 112. Memory 110 may include local memory (RAM 130) employed during actual execution of the program code and cache memories (cache 132) that provide temporary storage of at least some program code in order to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulk storage 118, connected to historical party reputation data collection system 104, during execution. Memory 110 may further include requester history storage 140 for collecting and storing a history of a requester and protected asset access history storage 142 for storing the access history of protected assets. Protected assets 144 are those assets that have restricted access and are allowed access only to certain requesters, based upon the requesters' reputation, such as security clearance, etc.

Input/output or I/O devices (external peripherals 116) (including but not limited to keyboards, displays (display 120), pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to historical party reputation data collection system 104 either directly or indirectly through a network (see FIG. 2) through intervening I/O controllers (I/O interface(s) 114). Historical party reputation data collection system 104 may also include protected asset processing unit 110 coupled to system bus 112. Requests or queries sent by protected asset processing unit 110 may be manually created by, such as, keying in a query on a keyboard (external peripheral(s) 114) and transmitting to data system forensics system 104 or, alternatively, may be automatically generated by a separate computer, e.g., and transmitting to historical party reputation data collection system 104.

Network adapters (network adapter 138 in FIG. 1) may also be utilized in system 200 to enable data processing units (as shown in FIG. 2, data processing unit 202) to become coupled through network connections (network connections 206, 208) to other data processing units (data processing unit 204), remote printers (printer 212) and/or storage devices (storage 214) or other devices through intervening private and/or public networks (network 210).

FIG. 3 illustrates system 300 having reputation decision making system 302 that may include protected asset access decision maker 304 for receiving requests and providing responses to access protected assets 144 (FIG. 1) from requesters, each having a reputation that may be stored in reputation provider 316, such as a security clearance, associations with various organizations, whether the requestor's family members work for competitors, etc. Reputation provider 316 may receive reputation modifications when the reputation of a requester changes, such as when a requester associates with an organization, when a requester gets married to a person who works for a competitor, etc. Reputation provider 316 may have reputation updater 318 for updating the reputation of a party when the party's reputation changes and reputation storer 320 for storing the party's reputation before and after changes. Reputation provider 316 may further have access reputation making calculator (decision making rating maker) 322. Reputation making calculator 322 analyzes each party's reputation to create an access decision rating. The access decision rating may be used to determine a party's ability to access protected assets. The access decision rating may be based upon the party's security clearance, associations with various organizations, whether the requestor's family members work for competitors, etc., as compared against protected asset decision requirements. The access decision rating may be used by protected asset access decision maker 304 to make a decision as to whether the protected asset may be accessed by a requesting party (requester).

Reputation provider 316 may further have reputation history storage unit 324 for storing the reputation history of each party and each party's access decision rating in access decision rating storage 326. Access decision ratings are forwarded to reputation analyzer 310.

Reputation analyzer 310 works with protected asset analyzer 312 to analyze the reputation of the requester and access decision rating as in accordance to the policy to access the requested protected asset. Risk assessor 314 may be utilized to assess risk associated with the requester accessing the protected asset. Protected asset access decision maker 304 may make access decisions as to whether a particular requester who has requested access to a particular protected asset. Protected asset access decision maker 304 may utilize protected asset access data assessor 308 to determine whether a particular requester is entitled to access the requested protected asset. Protected asset access decision data creator 306 creates and stores access decision data representing the decision making process by protected asset access decision maker 304. This access decision data may be used by protected asset access decision data assessor 308 to assess the decision making process made by reputation decision making system 302.

FIG. 4 illustrates an information collection method 400 of the present invention, beginning at 404 where information related to a requester, that is, a party, i.e., an individual or even a network, (requester's reputation) is collected. At 406, the requester's reputation (requester information) is stored. At 408, an access decision (reputation) rating is calculated based upon the requester's reputation. The access decision rating can be used to assess the access decision process by protected asset access decision data assessor 308 (FIG. 3). At 410, the access decision rating may be stored for later access. At 412, the access decision rating may be used for an access decision based upon a request from the requester for a protected asset. At 414, it may be determined that the requester's reputation has changed. At 416, the access decision rating is recalculated so that a new access decision rating is determined based upon the changed requester's reputation and is stored at 418. At 420, the new access decision rating is used when the requester makes an access request for a protected asset.

It should be understood that the present invention is typically computer-implemented via hardware and/or software. As such, client systems and/or servers will include computerized components as known in the art. Such components typically include (among others) a processing unit, a memory, a bus, input/output (I/O) interfaces, external devices, etc.

While shown and described herein as a system and method for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed has a reputation updater for updating a reputation, it is understood that the invention further provides various alternative embodiments. For example, in one embodiment, the invention provides a computer-readable/useable storage medium that includes computer program code to enable a system for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed has a reputation updater for updating a reputation. To this extent, the computer-readable/useable storage medium includes program code that implements each of the various process steps of the invention. It is understood that the terms computer-readable storage medium or computer useable storage medium comprises one or more of any type of physical embodiment of the program code. In particular, the computer-readable/useable storage medium can comprise program code embodied on one or more portable storage articles of manufacture (e.g., a compact disc, a magnetic disk, a tape, etc.), and on one or more data storage portions of a computing device, such as memory and/or storage system (e.g., a fixed disk, a read-only memory, a random access memory, a cache memory, etc.).

In another embodiment, the invention provides a computer-implemented method for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed has a reputation updater for updating a reputation. In this case, a computerized infrastructure can be provided and one or more systems for performing the process steps of the invention can be obtained (e.g., created, purchased, used, modified, etc.) and deployed to the computerized infrastructure. To this extent, the deployment of a system can comprise one or more of (1) installing program code on a computing device, such as computer system from a computer-readable medium; (2) adding one or more computing devices to the computer infrastructure; and (3) incorporating and/or modifying one or more existing systems of the computer infrastructure to enable the computerized infrastructure to perform the process steps of the invention.

As used herein, it is understood that the terms “program code” and “computer program code” are synonymous and may mean any expression, in any language, code or notation, of a set of instructions intended to cause a computing device having an information processing capability to perform a particular function either directly before or after either or both of the following: (a) conversion to another language, code or notation; and/or (b) reproduction in a different material form. To this extent, program code can be embodied as one or more of: an application/software program, component software/a library of functions, an operating system, a basic I/O system/driver for a particular computing and/or I/O device, and the like.

In another embodiment, the invention provides a business method that performs the process steps of the invention on a subscription, advertising, and/or fee basis. That is, a service provider, such as a solution integrator, could offer to deploy a computer infrastructure for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed has a reputation updater for updating a reputation. In this case, the service provider can create, maintain, and support, etc., the computer infrastructure by integrating computer-readable code into a computing system, wherein the code in combination with the computing system is capable of performing the process steps of the invention for one or more customers. In return, the service provider can receive payment from the customer(s) under a subscription and/or fee agreement and/or the service provider can receive payment from the sale of advertising content to one or more third parties.

The foregoing description of various aspects of the invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed, and obviously, many modifications and variations are possible. Such modifications and variations that may be apparent to a person skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scope of the invention as defined by the accompanying claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: collecting, using at least one computing device, reputation information of a requester, the requester comprising a first user that is requesting access to one or more assets, and the reputation information is based on at least an association of the first user with an organization and an association of the first user with one or more other users associated with one or more other organizations; storing, using the at least one computing device, the requester's reputation information; calculating, using the at least one computing device, an access decision rating based upon the requester's reputation information; storing, using the at least one computing device, the access decision rating; determining, using the at least one computing device, a change in the requester's reputation information, wherein the change comprises at least one of: a) the first user forming a new association with another organization or b) the first user forming a new association with a second user, wherein the second user is affiliated with another organization; and causing a new access decision rating to be calculated based upon the determined change in the requester's reputation information.
 2. The method as defined in claim 1 further comprising accessing, using the at least one computing device, the access decision rating when an access decision is necessary.
 3. The method as defined in claim 1 further comprising storing, using the at least one computing device, the new access decision rating.
 4. The method as defined in claim 1 further comprising accessing, using the at least one computing device, the new access decision rating when an access decision is necessary.
 5. A computer-readable storage device storing computer instructions, which, when executed, enables a computer system operating with a reputation provider for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating, the computer-readable storage medium storing computer instructions comprising: collecting reputation information of a requester, the requester comprising a first user that is requesting access to one or more assets, and the reputation information is based on at least an association of the first user with an organization and an association of the first user with one or more other users associated with one or more other organizations; storing the requester's reputation information; calculating the access decision rating based upon the requester's reputation information; storing the access decision rating; determining a change in the requester's reputation information, wherein the change comprises at least one of: a) the first user forming a new association with another organization or b) the first user forming a new association with a second user, wherein the second user is affiliated with another organization; and causing a new access decision rating to be calculated based upon the determined change in the requester's reputation information.
 6. The computer-readable storage device of claim 5 further comprising computer instructions comprising using the access decision rating when an access decision is necessary.
 7. The computer-readable storage device of claim 5 further comprising computer instructions comprising storing the new access decision rating.
 8. The computer-readable storage device of claim 5 further comprising computer instructions comprising using the new access decision rating when an access decision is necessary.
 9. A method for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed, the method comprising: collecting, via a computer system, reputation information of a requester, the requester comprising a first user that is requesting access to one or more assets, and the reputation information is based on at least an association of the first user with an organization and an association of the first user with one or more other users associated with one or more other organizations; storing, via the computer system, the requester's reputation information; calculating, via the computer system, the access decision rating based upon the requester's reputation information; storing, via the computer system, the access decision rating; determining, via the computer system, a change in the requester's reputation information, wherein the change comprises at least one of: a) the first user forming a new association with another organization or b) the first user forming a new association with a second user, wherein the second user is affiliated with another organization; and causing a new access decision rating to be calculated based upon the determined change in the requester's reputation information.
 10. The method as defined in claim 9, wherein the method further comprises using, via the computer system, the access decision rating when an access decision is necessary.
 11. The method as defined in claim 9, wherein the method further comprises storing, via the computer system, the new access decision rating.
 12. The method as defined in claim 9, wherein the method further comprises using, via the computer system, the new access decision rating when an access decision is necessary.
 13. A computer system for collecting and maintaining historical party reputation data and for using the historical party reputation data to calculate an access decision rating and recalculating the access decision rating when the historical party reputation data has changed, the system comprising: a memory medium comprising instructions; a bus coupled to the memory medium; and a processor coupled to the bus that when executing the instructions causes the computer system to: collect reputation information of a party, the party comprising a first user that is requesting access to one or more assets, and the reputation information is based on at least an association of the first user with an organization and an association of the first user with one or more other users associated with one or more other organizations; store the party's reputation information; calculate the access decision rating based upon the party's reputation information; store the access decision rating; determine a change in the party's reputation information, wherein the change comprises at least one of: a) the first user forming a new association with another organization or b) the first user forming a new association with a second user, wherein the second user is affiliated with another organization; and cause a new access decision rating to be calculated based upon the determined change in the party's reputation information. 